The pain, in that phase, wore me down. I was afraid of breaking apart into a million tiny repugnant pieces. And yet things just kept getting better. At school; on the publishing front; at the talks I gave which were always crowded, always lively; even the complicated political process that would bring me into Parliament—this was what Franchino hoped for, and perhaps what I also hoped for when I wowed people in the course of a televised debate. But there was little to be done, discontent always lurked in a corner, ready to regain ground. What was true—in my thoughts and in my hands, in my fingers, in my legs that were crossed, as I wrote the umpteenth piece on the fate of the school system, on the devastating effects of inequality, on love as the most effective form of pedagogy? True in the sense that I absolutely believed it, not like someone who reads a novel or watches a film, utterly engaged, and yet aware that it’s all made up.
One morning, when I had a slight fever, I didn’t go to school. I felt listless. I looked at the terrace on the other side of the glass of my tiny veranda, at the roofs, pigeons, crows, gulls, and sky. It was cloudy, and I searched for a thought that would shore me up. What came to mind was: until now things have gone well, but it’s above all with my children that I’ve proven myself. But this thought didn’t lift my spirits. How had I proven myself to Emma, Sergio, Ernesto? Had I convinced them of a truth, or a lie? Was I congratulating myself because I had fully revealed myself to them, or because I’d hidden myself just as fully?
I hoped I had nothing more to hide. I was most assuredly a good man, even though, with Teresa, I always had to stay on my toes, there was always the danger that she’d step in and demolish everything—the same thing that happens to those chalk drawings on the sidewalk when it rains and pedestrians mix up all the colors with their shoes, folding in water and filth. A while back, she’d attacked me because I’d recklessly confessed my repulsion toward Franchino and Nadia to her. I’d replied by explaining my reasons, but then I’d grown exasperated and written: you can’t fault me for my fantasies as well, sometimes you make me so incredibly angry that I no longer want to slit my wife’s throat, but get on a plane and come to slit yours. For weeks, no comment. No big deal, Teresa never wrote much, she often disappeared. At last a letter arrived, and a terrible fight exploded, that had seemingly nothing to do with my gory outburst, but with a trifling matter. She’d told me, some time before, that she’d be touring Europe to attend a series of conferences, and I’d replied: tell me where you’ll be and I’ll join you. That was what had caused her to kick back: what did I mean by that, join her why, with what right, who was I to her, and she to me, you have your life and I have mine, what do you want, how dare you threaten me, not only is there no love between you and me, but no hate. Between you and me there’s nothing at all. She never wrote to me again.
I missed her now. I missed her especially on dull days, like that morning when I was feverish and my thoughts were muddled. I’d recently quit smoking, I no longer drank coffee, I’d even stopped drinking the usual glass of wine with dinner. These small deprivations had become a way, recently, to keep myself in check, especially when, all of a sudden, I would think about my story—and not so much about what had happened to me, about all that I’d satisfyingly accomplished, but about my very awareness of being alive. About I, if you can say that: this personal pronoun that had slipped into the cogs of the universe like an iron bolt—and I asked myself what was the point of my governing life, teaching it good manners, educating it. What earthly gain or heavenly reward was worth refining it with such struggle? I started to get sleepy. I looked at my watch, it was eleven thirty-five, Nadia and the children were in their respective classrooms. An autumn wind was blowing, and I went out onto the terrace even though I felt cold. I glanced up at the sky, full of white clouds and peaceful wisps, then I looked down, leaning over. Who knew where Teresa was, in which of the world’s cities. Up until that moment, yes, I was a lucky man, and a good part of my fortune had come from her, even if she frightened me more and more. I thought: what if she burst in now and gave me a shove?